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The first 3 seasons? Kinda. But thanks to Manny Coto becoming the series showrunner for the 4th season, things started to get better there (or so the general consensus is). Infamous ep-22 notwithstanding, of course.

Then again, anyone who wasn't watching ENT for T'Pol + Hoshi is a fool.

I have nothing but the utmost respect for Manny Coto. He really did try and get some decent episodes out. But the odds were just too against him.

Star Trek I-- is the ultimate extended episode and tried to go off on some things about ascending physical existence. It was boring, useless for non-trek fans and came off as a lousy 2001 ripoff. So they went for more excitement in the next.

II-- Is widely considered the best movie. It took an existing adversary and drove up the conflict. As it goes after concepts of hate and sacrifice, it was easy to appeal to audiences even if there wasn't much action. It was thoughtful. Well there was some action, but it's more subtle, and is more suited to a thriller and building up tension rather then for the sake of shit exploding.

III- Was outright mindless, but the action heavy scenes and humor helped the series through, it's mostly running off the success of II

IV- Is probably the most lighthearted one, and unique in the aspect. But as I've noted, it took the build up of the last movies to get this kind of suspension of disbelief. And of course, environmentalism is always funny too.

V- Is trash

VI- Falls under the same style of II. It has Shakespearean aspects and actaully addressed a valuable contemporary issue about fear of change. This is my personal favorite since it covers so much in a short time frame.

VII- The start of the Next Generation movies, with a focus on more hollywood style action and cliffhanger scenes. But the TNG cast is just not suited for that kind of shit. Picard beaming down to directly fight with the bad guy is not only unbelievable, but also silly. Of course there were more fancy explosions and shit, but it also has one of the most retarded battles of all time, and the emasculation of Riker would become a recurring theme, sans the next movie.

Where was the plot to this? Nope, ITS KIRK. We don't need a plot.

VIII-- Running along side Voyager and DS9, this is where a high priority on PEW PEW PEW comes in. Its counterpart shows would also feature bigger budget battles and it worked quite well. Unfortunately this is also where the franchise gets too reliant on this thing. IMO, this is the only good TNG movie, where much like II, the Wrath of Khan, it draws into an easily accessible inner conflict with the main character that makes the thing riveting without requiring prior knowledge. It was cheesy enough to make the TNG cast come across as action heroes, almost.

IX- I have no idea why this movie exists, except to emasculate Riker even further and random fanservice. This is where the cast starts aging and them engaging in fights just seems ridiculous. And once again the Captain goes rambo into the bad guys. Hah... right.

X- Janeway becoming Admiral was the least bad part about the movie. This movie is also trash and relied completely on PEW PEW PEW. Except someone decided the Enterprise only had a dozen torpedoes so the fights weren't even good.

Spoiler for Star Trek movies:

I'm not too familiar with TOS so I can't say much about it. That said, I didn't notice Riker's badass decay because Generations to Nemesis crystalized Data's road to humanity. The former was about choosing between what you want VS what you have and the latter's fight scene you're referring to had the Enterprise liberally firing away for several minutes on top of the Scimitar hitting the ship's weapon systems. I haven't seen Insurrection though.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

My point is that there's been a trend to try and make the franchise look cool at the expense of everything else, including storytelling. It has worked, of course, but it's clear that the writing has been getting progressively worse. The ones that do capture the spirit of the series just might not work well today, without some truly inspired writing like that of II or VI that would pave the way for its inferior brethren to make more money and at least be entertaining.

At least they do understand ToS makes a better cast, however... it is truly drawing blood from a stone in some cases. But especially with the TNG movies, they failed to capture what the show was about, and it was not just about Picard and Data doing singing routines.

Ultimately, I just found the older movies easier to watch as standalone.

The problem isn't the storytelling itself so much as it is the special effects talking over what the movies were saying. The choice between fake perfection and imperfect reality, the idea of changing the past and vengeance, and identity crisis were clear themes in Generations, First Contact, and Nemesis. As the intensity of fast-paced, loud special effects increases, the more jarring the human-like scenes/messages or it becomes more difficult to place. Though I'll admit I'm usually not bothered by pace differences between heavy dialog and action scenes. I'm more concerned about out-of-character actions, G.I. Jean-Luc not withstanding.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Archon_Wing

And early TNG/TOS often had that perception that those other races are evil and had much to learn from humans. It got obnoxious.

It'd be obnoxious if TOS/TNG had ensemble factions instead of focusing primarily from Star Fleet/The Federation's POV. It's mostly the antagonistic part of not-on-good-terms-with-the-Federation-already-races in conflict with them anyway.

__________________

I want to know more, it's a wild night
let's delve into the dreams
I want to know more, it's a wild ride
so let's have a shocking party
dancing, dancing, don't stop my dancing
dancing, dancing, let me do

Star Trek works best when it has a compelling story, or at least a semi-compelling story with a lot of nifty special effects going on.

While the Next Generation had some stories like this, the Original Series had at least as many good stories in its three years. The key for the Original was the character dynamics. It didn't take long for the audiance to care what happened to Kirk, Spock, McCoy, or Scotty. Their relationship with each other was well written. And Kirk and Scott's love of the Enterprise was also well written, to the point were the ship itself is almost a character (to the point where it is sad to see her go).

The Next Generation had some of this. The audiance started to care what happened to Worf, Data, Picard, and Riker. The character interactions eventually got better, though the Enterprise-D never quite felt like a character the way the original did, nor did Picard or LaForge have the sort of relationship with it that Kirk and Scott did (that might be because the Enterprise-D was a new ship, while the older vessel was just that, and older starship with many parsecs behind her).

This dynamic is what failed a lot of the time in DS9, Voyager, and Enterprise. It took a bit too long to get to the point the audiance actually cared about these people (if they ever got to that point at all). DS9 had the darker tone stories and some are very well written and acted, but the character connection is not quite there for most of the cast until later on (sometimes very later on). Worf and O'brian came in with people caring what happened to him, the it tooks four or five season for me to even care about Bashir, Kira, Odo, or Quark. I'm not sure if I every really cared about what happened to Sisko or Jake. I warmed up to Dax quickly enough though. Oddly it was some of the regular guest stars characters I cared about more. General Martok, later episodes with Nog, and Garrak. I don't think I ever got really attached to anyone on Voyager or Enterprise.

DS9 had the darker tone stories and some are very well written and acted, but the character connection is not quite there for most of the cast until later on (sometimes very later on). Worf and O'brian came in with people caring what happened to him, the it tooks four or five season for me to even care about Bashir, Kira, or Quark. I'm not sure if I every really cared about what happened to Sisko or Jake. I warmed up to Dax quickly enough though. Oddly it was some of the regular guest stars characters I cared about more. General Martok, later episodes with Nog, and Garrak. I don't think I ever got really attached to anyone on Voyager or Enterprise.

Wasn't that kind of the point of DS9? These were characters tired due to war and cynical of whether or not peace, let alone dignity, was every truly accomplished. DS9, early on, was a constant political and religious struggle between many of the characters as they simply tried to find an identity and what it meant to be free (and the price of that freedom). Personally, I vastly preferred the jagged edges of the DS9 characters to any of the other series, and their disconnect with each other and sometimes themselves was always interesting and often very sympathetic (early on and later).

They need to stop with the new trailers. Each new trailer, while upping the action-thriller angle, makes the sequel seem like a painfully generic adventure film. We have enough hype already, just calm your ridiculously large man-boobs Paramount and show the trailers you already have (and why the hell isn't this being released with G.I. Joe? What's the point of trailers at the beginning of films if I've already seen them multiple times on my computer/phone before the official trailer has even been shown in theatres?).

Not sure why you were expecting something unique and different here... The first movie should've already gave it away that wasn't going to be the case with this reboot.

It's not about what I'm expecting the film to be (I have no real expectations for the film beyond the idea that I will have a decent time watching it), it's how they are marketing it that is at fault. The more they market the action, the less it feels like a Star Trek vehicle (even if a sequel to the reformatted Star Trek) and more like any run of the mill Summer release (please no one start a purist Star Trek rant). They seem to be effectively giving us a film sequel where many sequels have gone before (dammit, I guess I do expect better than that). Here's hoping that what they are not showing is just as if not more interesting than what they are showing.

It's not about what I'm expecting the film to be (I have no real expectations for the film beyond the idea that I will have a decent time watching it), it's how they are marketing it that is at fault. The more they market the action, the less it feels like a Star Trek vehicle (even if a sequel to the reformatted Star Trek) and more like any run of the mill Summer release (please no one start a purist Star Trek rant). They seem to be effectively giving us a film sequel where many sequels have gone before (dammit, I guess I do expect better than that). Here's hoping that what they are not showing is just as if not more interesting than what they are showing.

I agree to a point, but I don't think it's really that bad. For what it's worth this is basically how every movies are promoted these days.

I can kinda agree with James on the trailer thing.
I think making too many different trailers showing more and more of the film is bad idea.
For the most part I try to avoid new trailers or ones that are abit lengthy as they do indeed give away too much of the film.
But then I've always quite enjoy such trailers really, which is part of me I don't like

I can say tho I am very much looking forward this, even if it's something not entirely Star Trek like I still think it will be a good watch.

Well either they made up there own new villian, they corrupted the hell out of an existing one to be something they were not....or it is Gary Mitchell.

yeah, the whole set up may be different and the justification/motive altered but ... yeah, Gary Mitchell and his blonde cohort Dr. Elizabeth Dehner (originally played by she otherwise remembered as Hot Lips Houlihan from the original movie MASH).

Star Trek works best when it has a compelling story, or at least a semi-compelling story with a lot of nifty special effects going on.

While the Next Generation had some stories like this, the Original Series had at least as many good stories in its three years.

Not really, I would say the first three seasons of both series have the same amount of good episodes.

I do agree about the character interaction though. Kirk, Spock and McCoy have the classic Freudian trio going on, add Scotty to the mix you'll have a very appealing cast, especially for the big screen. If you compare this with Picard, Riker and Data which relation can described as the father, the perfect son-in-law and the son which is understandably not very appealing.
On the other hand Uhura, Sulu and Chekov have nothing to add and can be replaced by anyone or anything and the TOS cast would still be the same. The same cannot be said of the TNG or DS9 cast.

Next Generation was setup to have a three tier of the same character at different points in their life/career.

You have the seasoned captain in Picard. He's been out there a while and has gotten a certain hard ass edge to him while also not being quite as young and brash as he once was.

You have the young up and coming officer in Commander Riker, who is suppose to be a younger version of Picard in his traits. Still young and brash, but learning. Should be setup to become a great captain one day.

And then we have Wesley Crusher. The teenage version of both these men. The intellect and drive to become like Picard, but completely inexperiance in almost everything except what he's studied. The Prodagy Child meant to do great things...someday...when he's older.

It didn't quite work out that way. Wes got annoying to most people and the focus of the audiance and the writers shifted to Data and Worf. Data becoming the third man of the group over Wesley and Worf shifting to DS9 eventually to become even more important to the overall picture.

I actually found DS9 straight out bad, and the series that came after Voyager was so bad that I have actively blocked its name from memory.

Kirk and crew really were the best, and I rate Next Generation and Voyager roughly the same. No, scratch that. There were no main characters I actively despised in Voyager, whereas Next Generation...Will ******* Wheaton. To make it worse, Wheaton has gone on to be a nerd/dork/geek/sci-fi/etc spokesman/idol of sorts, which is like twisting the dagger after we've already been stabbed.

As for the new movies...sure, some perfect movie would be fantastic, but if I had to choose between the special effects J.J. Abrams version of Star Trek, or some Star Trek movie that was in the vein of where the franchise had been going for the last 10 years, I'd choose J.J.'s vision in a heartbeat.

Okay, my son and I laughed our heads off at the 'BAAAAAAH!' musical effect in the first trailer. That appears to be required for all trailers in all epic movies any more.

This seems to be put a few more notches in the notion that it's a re-interpretation of the second Classic pilot episode.

TBH with the trailers I've seen for this movie I half expect to see a Reaper smashing up San Francisco everytime I hear that bass noise. Maybe Kirk can team up with Shepard or something, I dunno.

While I'm sure I'll enjoy it, even if its just a generic pewpew fest (takes a lot to make me hate a movie, unless its by Ewe Bole), have to admit adding Reapers would take things in a hilariously awesome direction.